The One Before Easter

March 26, 2016

If we’re being totally honest over here, between the different spring breaks (which really amount to no true breaks) and the ever-growing pile of to-do lists, Easter completely snuck up on me. Friends of ours are getting married this weekend (yay!) which means we’re staying in town for the holiday. While at the grocery store earlier this week, I rolled through our usual list of dinners and realized that I had penciled in Sunday as breakfast for dinner, and it struck me that we’d be eating pancakes for our Easter meal. Later in the week a friend called and didn’t want to fly solo for Easter, so we’re pulling together a last minute meal (come join, if you’re local!), but all this to say – Easter has been an afterthought for us this year.

Our church arranged a Good Friday prayer opportunity that was open all day long, filled with seven stations equipped with scripture and a prayer focus. I hadn’t originally planned to go, but I accidentally arrived to a photoshoot early and realized that with time to kill and church right down the road, I might as well swing by. So I walked into the fellowship hall with twenty minutes to kill and made the risky decision to leave my phone left on ring, in case the client called. My heart was ready for none of the things that were laid out at each table. I moved quietly through each station, reading sacred words, focusing each prayer with barely more than an “Abba, please”. The whisper of my heart, a desperate plea.

I think I tend to give the holidays a wide berth, avoiding them generously out of a desire to skirt around the heart and soul evaluation they so often lend themselves to. I’d rather not check in, not really, because that might require more work than I’m ready for. But Easter waits for no man, and when confronted with the truth of sacrifice and the wonder of resurrection, there is nowhere else to turn but inward and upward. Contrite heart, with arms lifted up. Hosanna in the highest, indeed.

There’s no sunrise at Windjammer for me this year, but instead I’m aiming for honesty – about where I am and who I am, and rest in knowing that while my sin was strong, Jesus is stronger.